Leave the Office Early: How Case Management Software Saves You Time

MyCase Blog Home » Leave the Office Early: How Case Management Software Saves You Time

As the song says, it’s summertime and the living is easy. Unfortunately when you’re facing a mountain of paperwork and another evening of working late, that sounds more than a little off-key.

There is a way out. By using a comprehensive case management software program, you can actually escape your office early to enjoy an evening barbecue, summer concert, or trip to the waterfront. Here are some common tasks that keep you chained to your desk and how case management software can set you free.

Communication/Meetings

Nothing can trap you in an office late more than endless meetings that chew up your time during the day. You are faced with a zero sum game: time spent during the day means makeup time during the evening. Things need to get done.

With online communications tools, you may be able to avoid those long phone conversations or offsite client meetings that consume hours of your time. With online direct messaging you can instantly communicate with your clients, avoiding phone tag or time-wasting email trails. Every document you upload can have a comment stream associated with it. Clear descriptions included up front eliminate the need for lengthy conversations later. Your clients can have secure and private portals to review relevant documentation that helps prevent the need for additional explanations that eat up time.

Organization

How much time do you waste searching for files, contact information, tasks, and reminders? Case management software takes your critical practice challenges and organizes them so that you have easy access when you need them. That may not seem significant, but if you spend an extra ten minutes retrieving information on just six cases in a day, that’s an hour that you could be spending with friends and family in the evening instead of behind your desk.

Time Capture/Billing

This one is obvious. You know how much time it takes to manually record and allocate time spent by case every day. Shuffling endless paperwork can take a big chunk of time out of your day. With case management software, though, time and expense tracking is built in. Simply create entries and generate invoices with the click of a button. Integrated time and expense tracking means there is no need for timekeepers to decipher records scribbled on hard copy paper and transfer them to computer, nor to switch between multiple computer programs to ensure accurate time capture and billing. That all adds up to significant time savings.

Would you rather be outdoors than locked in your office? Take advantage of efficiencies created through the use of case management software that will get you out into the sunshine. Summer will be over before you know it. Get out there and enjoy.

Nicole Black is an attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase. Her legal career spans nearly two decades and she has extensive litigation experience. She was named an inaugural ABA Legal Rebel in 2009 and an inaugural Fastcase 50 in 2011. She is also a well known legal technology author, journalist, and speaker. She wrote "Computing for Lawyers" (2012) and co-authored "Social Media: The Next Frontier" (2010), both published by the American Bar Association. She also co-authors "Criminal Law in New York," a Thomson West treatise. She often speaks at conferences about the intersection of law, mobile computing and Internet-based technology. She can be reached at niki@mycase.com.